While a terrible storm rages, threatening disaster and destruction, ten-year-old Dinah huddles by candlelight with her brother, sister, and cousin Gage, who tells them all a very unusual story of a creature he met named What-the-Dickens. In this tale-within-a-tale for readers 10 to 13 from the author of Wicked and the Hamlet Chronicles, What-the-Dickens emerges, motherless, from an egg. He finds he has an attraction to teeth, a crush on a cat named McCavity, and a penchant for getting into trouble. When he happens upon a feisty girl trading coins for teeth who calls herself a skibberee, What-the-Dickens realizes he is one like her—a tooth fairy.

"The siblings' problems meeting their basic needs ring true, and their relationships with one another add depth to the story. There's much here to appeal to both Maguire's younger and older fans, and the immediacy of the story and combination of fantasy and reality will grip even reluctant readers."—School Library Journal